Winter's Storey Knit Along Blanket - Sara's Hints and Tips

Detailed below are hints and tips from both me and our test knitter Rosie for our new knit along - Winter's Storey designed by Martin Storey. Rosie is an incredible knitter whose scientific mind always helps us pull a pattern together.

Watch Sara chatting about the blanket and sharing more of her hints and tips. 

1. Check your tension! If you have bought a yarn pack from us to make your blanket there is enough yarn in the pack to make the blanket at the specified tension. Plus the tension will affect the look and drape of the blanket.
2. When casting on put a stitch marker every 50 stitches to stop the endless counting!
   
   
   
3. Label your colours before you start - I promise it makes life much easier.
4. If knitting the blanket in the round I use the following Very Pink Knits technique to join my circle. Watch on YouTube.
   
   
   
   
   
5. All of the patterns are charted, you start the chart in the bottom right hand corner. If knitting in the round you read every row right to left, if knitting the blanket flat you read odd rows right to left and even rows left to right. Watch a video we filmed for a previous make along on following a chart. 
6. Don’t panic if your first round or two feels tight. It will soon tighten up.
7. Use washi tape to mark where you are up to on the chart, I also cross out every row when I have finished it.
   
   
   
   
   
8. Initially I used three stitch markers, one to mark the start of the round, and two to signal the steek stitches. However I soon whittled this down to two to mark the steeked stitches.
9. The pattern is written in such a way that it eases you into the colourwork. Row 20 is the first row that you strand over a significant number of stitches (10).
10. When carrying the colour not in use across the back of the blanket catch every 3-5 stitches. I do it every three. 
    
    
    
    
    
11. Use stitch markers to mark each pattern repeat, it can help you remember where you are up to.
12. If you are knitting the blanket flat, do take time at the end of every row to untangle your yarns (I end up with yarn spaghetti if I don't).
    
    
    
13. For those of you knitting the blanket flat and looking for advice on knitting a fair isle purl row, have a read of this helpful article from Gathered. They have everything covered.
14. If you are knitting in the round and are unsure how to hold your yarns. Watch how I knit two handed fair isle in our latest YouTube video.

On to even more tips from our test knitter Rosie.

1. Where possible, I used 2 yarns across the steek catching secondary yarn every other stitch. Where the yarn colour changed, I ended the yarn no longer required at centre with a short (~2 inch) tail and joined new (also with a short 2 inch tail). These will be sewn in later. 
2. I knit the side edging BEFORE cutting the steek by picking up the stitches through both legs of the steek stitches next to the first or last stitches of the pattern - this leaves 1.5 stitches or 3 stitch legs to the crochet reinforcement.
3. To ensure I picked up the side stitches evenly, I divided the total number of stitches required by the total number of rows to work out when to skip a row. I then used stitch markers to separate the length of the side into quarters and checked my stitch count at each marker (I'm an engineer and a bit nerdy - sorry!!!!).